“Mama, why are you squeezing me so hard?” Stephanie muffled from somewhere buried in Kayla’s bosom.
“Yeah, Kay, why are you squeezin’ her so hard?” Kimberly looked on from the open doorway with the wariest eye, because her sister was acting really weird. “Ya testing her for freshness,” she laughed half-heartedly, “’cause you’re handling her like a piece of produce there.”
Steve really didn’t want Kayla leaving the house before an official talk with Shane could happen, and Kayla didn’t really want to be flying without a net, as would be necessitated with a solo pickup at school. But they were both extremely eager to get Stephanie back in the house safe and sound, so Kayla asked her sister as a favor to go get her. It was dumb luck that Kimberly was done with her own therapy patients by then and was able to get away.
Kayla ignored all statements and rubbed her cheek on the top of her daughter’s head. “You smell so good, baby girl,” she whispered. “Mm … Just like I re—just like you.” She let up the inadvertent vise grip but continued to hold her daughter tightly against her. Stephanie enjoyed the attention even amidst the weirdness. After all, you couldn’t get any weirder than your dad coming back from the dead, so she took this in stride and just went with it. Kayla held her out at the shoulders and gazed down lovingly into her daughter’s dark eyes. Long, brown hair smooth as silk, flawless skin, rosy cheeks, athletically statuesque build. She was like a miniature version of the young woman she’d left back in 2009 – a child just on the cusp of leaving little girlhood and heading into tweendom; not quite there yet but almost. How lucky she felt in this moment to get her daughter at this age in this very month. If she jumped right now, it was still an amazing moment to be given. Kayla smoothed back Stephanie’s long, dark tresses and smiled admiringly. “You always had the most beautiful hair in the family, you know that?”
“Yeah, I still don’t know where those genes came from,” Kimberly jibed.
Kayla glanced up with a smile but then did a double-take when she got a look at her sister’s face. Three years into this and the first views of her friends and family’s youthful appearances just continued to shock. Kim’s expression changed to real confusion as she watched her sister try to control that shock from playing out on her face.
“Kayla, I dunno what has gotten into you, but you look like you haven’t seen her in forever. What happened?”
“Nothing,” Kayla lied badly. Steve tapped his foot nervously as he willed her to keep it together from his position in the bedroom. “Just—really bad, uh, bad day.”
“Oh, uh-huh,” Kim absently mumbled while she tried to figure out what was up with Kayla. “Bad day, yeah, of course.”
“Bad day like why?” Stephanie piped in with concern.
“Work, baby girl,” Kayla replied very quickly.
“Did you lose a patient after we talked or something?” Kim asked.
Red flags went off for Steve, because he knew Kayla was now flying blind. Clearly, they’d spoken earlier in the day before she’d jumped in. She was just going to have to wing this. “You can do it, baby,” he whispered.
“Yes … yes, I did,” she said sadly. “It’s been very rough today. A lot of stuff I … wasn’t prepared for. Not sure how to really handle it all.”
“Nothin’ like the truth,” he whispered again. “Wasn’t all bad …”
“Do you wanna talk about it? You know I’m here for you.”
“No. Thanks, though. I think I’m just going to make an easy dinner and try to go to bed early.”
Kayla did her best to get through the next few moments of small talk. She’d gotten very good over the re-lived years at reacting from her head and not her heart; right now, however, it was a real struggle. It didn’t help that Stephanie was chompin’ at the bit to go up to the loft to see her father.
Finally Kimberly turned to go. She wasn’t at all convinced that something wasn’t really odd with her sister, but the possibilities running through her mind weren’t even close to accurate. Kayla thanked her for picking up Stephanie, they hugged goodbye, and Kimberly walked out the door. Just as it was closing behind her she pivoted with an afterthought.
“Hey, by the way, New Year’s is fine. Got a real fun night planned,” she winked at her niece.
Kayla swung the door back open. “New Years?”
Kim crossed her arms and cocked her head. “The party? Your date with the doctor you liiiiiike?”
“Mama can’t go to that!”
Steve slapped his forehead.
“What? Kay, I thought you wanted us to take her. I arranged to have the kids, and Phillip is bringing home some advanced screenings from the studio for the kids to watch together.”
Kayla thought fast. Between what Steve said about Sam and her own memory, she figured it must be the date for the faculty party. Messy, indeed. That was three weeks away, right now she needed to just keep up appearances. And, apparently, appearances were that she was going to go on a date. This explained Stephanie’s outburst. Steve had said she was on cloud nine watching her mother and father together, and this date – something she’d pushed for the first time around – was now perceived as a serious threat. “We’re just friends, Stephanie,” Kayla assured her. Kim inserted a silent eye roll. “That’s great, Kimmie, thank you.” Then she looked back to Stephanie’s indignant face. Wow, she thought, I’d forgotten what a wonderful spitfire you are. “It’s just a work thing, it’s not a real date, honey.”
“But Mamaaaa,” she whined with serious emphasis on the unspoken reminder of her father being back with just the slightest incline of her head to the attic above them.
Steve was free to pace now that he didn’t have squeaky floorbords to worry about and desperately did so.
Kayla put on her best act in exuberantly and profusely thanking her sister for making the arrangements to be home so she could do this, and Kim perked up. She was genuinely thrilled that Kayla was going to get out and socialize with a real man for a change and hoped something romantic would come of it. As soon as possible.
They hugged one more time, and that was when Kayla watched the van return over Kim’s shoulder. They weren’t right in front of the house this time, instead they parked two houses down. But even in the dark and down the decently-lit street, it was clear to Kayla that this was the same van, those were the same men, and as Steve feared, they were not giving up their surveillance. She swore to herself but dared not drop her act in front of Kim or look in the direction of the men watching her from the van that she was pretending not to see. As torturously slow and normally as she could, she waved goodbye, shouted another thank you, then closed the door and locked it. Safely back inside, she shouted three words.
“The van’s back!”
Steve came barreling out. Rather than run for him like she usually did when she came home from school, his very perceptive daughter eyed him curiously, then turned back to her mother before asking what was wrong. Because something clearly was.
Kayla took Stephanie’s hand in hers and rubbed her palm over it while she silently asked her husband what they should say to her. She’d only had her dad back for a week and a half, but it felt like she’d known not just him but them for her entire life, and she saw very clearly that the two of them were having a conversation with just their eyes. On the one hand it was thrilling to see them interact this way, as a couple, because their their love story was epic even to her, and having them both there was a dream she never thought would come true. On the other hand, however, it was very clear to her that there was something to be very scared about. As a result, she was very, very scared.
The small sound that came from Kayla’s throat was something like a disappointed whine. “I didn’t even get to spend a minute with her yet.”
“We gotta do it or there won’t be any more minutes to make up for it.”
“She’s just a little girl,” she barely whispered.
“What is it?!” Stephanie begged. “What, I can take it!” The collective sigh from her parents was the last comment.
“Come here, Little Sweetness, your mama and I have to have a real grown up talk with you.”
Steve ushered his girls and one stuffed animal into their bedroom and onto the bed where they sat closely facing each other to begin this discussion. Kayla was still in awe of this paradoxical visit to her ten-year-old, but for now she put it aside. She had to be very in this moment as a mother first, because Stephanie had to be protected. Some couples put each other before their kids; some couples put their kids before each other. Both Steve and Kayla were the latter, and neither would have had it any other way. This Stephanie would cease to exist when they jumped, but in their experience any jump that lasted this long was going to last even longer. Their rule was generally that other people, whether they loved them dearly or not, did not count when push came to shove, because those other people would not be surviving into the next timeline. Their children were exceptions to that rule. So for as long as they were here, protecting Stephanie was their priority. Unfortuantely, neither of them could think of a way to really do that without being truthful about what was happening with Stefano’s men.
With Kayla still too fresh to this timeline, Steve absolutely took over, here. He told Stephanie that she had to be very brave and that no matter what, she must trust him that they were all going to be ok as long as she did exactly what was asked of her. She listened to her father very intently and processed every single thing he said. Between his confident words and her mother’s comforting embrace around the shoulders, they were both very effective in making her understand how serious this was while also assuring her that she was safe. Things Steve was very honest about included that the house was being watched by the men that wanted him to come back to work, that he absolutely must stay hidden, and that she and they must act like he did not exist, which included pretending mom went on dates.
“But, Papa—”
“No buts, baby girl,” Kayla interjected, “I’m not gambling with this. If I have to go on a date with Dr. Granger or pretend Uncle Shane is my boyfriend to make sure no one takes your Papa away from us again, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Uncle Shane?” Stephanie asked, wrinkling her brow in utter confusion. Uh oh. Steve leveled his first truly annoyed look of the jump upon his wife. She realized her error, but it was too late now, so it was time to just deal with it. “Stephanie, when you were really little, after your aunt and uncle got divorced and we thought your Papa was dead, Uncle Shane was my boyfriend for a little while.”
“Really?” she asked skeptically?
“Yep, really. And now those men think we’re dating again. And we have to make sure they still think that.”
“But what about the party? If he’s your boyfriend, then why do you have to go to the party with Dr. Granger?”
“Well, I really hope I don’t. But sometimes people date more than one person at a time, and I may have to do that to keep Papa safe and with us where he belongs.”
“But you only kiss Papa.” It wasn’t a question for her mother as much as a directive to her. Both Kayla and Steve were amused.
“Of course,” Kayla smiled.
There were also things he was not honest about. Like that her and Kayla’s lives were in danger right along with his, and that neither he nor her mother had actually existed in this timeline in a very long time. When all was said and done, it was clear that Stephanie was scared. But Kayla marveled at just how very determined she was, too. Now that he was home and very much alive, no one was going to be taking her father away from her ever again. They didn’t like that they had to bring this level of awareness and burden upon their ten-year-old daughter, but it was what it was, and both Steve and Kayla felt that they’d made the right calls on their disclosure.
Steve rubbed his chin. He got up and looked very carefully out past the curtains, losing his focus on the conversation Kayla and Stephanie continued to have while the gears turned in his head. How long was it going to be before they made their move? He couldn’t help but question whether or not coming here was right, because the exact thing he feared was now upon him — the presence of Stefano’s men.
Stephanie was in the livingroom watching TV when Steve came into the kitchen at about a quarter to five. Kayla insisted that she make the dinner she’d said she would. Not just because she wanted to stick to the script, but because she needed to immerse herself into this time. Being here wasn’t quite the shock seeing the loft or even the house had been when they’d arrived to them for the first time, but there was something about this one that left her feeling very out of sorts. It may have been the absolute need to get it right for the watching eyes, or it may have been the fact that this place was completely unshared between them, but whatever it was, Kayla felt like she had to get with the program on feeling this location.
“I hope everyone’s ok with chicken,” she said nervously, “it’s the best I could do on short notice.”
“Baby, listen,” Steve replied from under the mistletoe in the doorway to the loft in order to stay out of view from the kitchen window, “I’ve been thinkin’.”
Kayla knew that tone. “Yeah?” she asked warily.
“I just checked, and they’re still there. That means you’re gonna have to make this look good.” Kayla’s eyes clouded over. “When Shane gets here.”
She folded her arms and stuck out her chin. “And just what does that mean?”
“He’s your boyfriend, right?”
Kayla couldn’t believe where he was going with this. “I don’t know, I think I’m playing the field right now, don’t you?” Kayla’s reaction was snarky, but Steve was being dead serious.
“Baby, you have to act normal. You laid it on real thick today, you can’t back out now.”
“Are you blaming me?!” Kayla was very successfully keeping her voice down but her tone was huffy.
“Just the opposite, Kayla, you did good! You couldn’t have done it any better, we’re lucky Shane called when he did, it was perfect. But now you gotta follow through on it.”
“Follow through?” she questioned before it hit her. “Oooooh, no, no, no, NO.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“You’ve got to.”
“Like hell I do, Steve!”
“Just stop and think about this for a minute. Those goons think that you sleep with him,” Steve whispered. “They think he’s your boyfriend. That means you gotta greet him like that’s what he is.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“You gotta act normal,” he pleaded.
“So,what, you mean you want me to kiss him?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Kayla gaped at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack.”
Kayla went to the stove and turned her back on him, swaying in front of the peas and carrots she was now stirring in their pot. “No way.”
Steve felt the no way as strongly as Kayla did, it’s not like he was eager to have his wife fake a relationship with, of all people, Shane, and thought of her lips on anyone but him made him seethe. But that fact was that he knew first-hand what those men out there were prepared to do. What they were capable of. So, jealousy wasn’t foremost on his mind at the moment, his wife and daughter’s lives were.
“Way.”
“Yeah, well you can just party on, Garth, bcause I’m not doing it.”
“This isn’t a game, Kayla!” Steve said, his temper utterly lost. Stephanie looked up, startled at the anger she’d not once yet heard from her father.
“Lower your voice,” Kayla growled through clenched teeth. Then she went out to the livingroom to calm Stephanie and assure her that the stress is just getting to them both and that it’s going to be fine.” Somewhere in the back of her head she realized that falling into lockstep of being Stephanie’s mom at this time happened far more quickly than she’d given herself credit for. When she returned Steve pulled her up into the stairwell. His decibel level had drained to the barest whisper, but his ire was still red hot.
“This is not a game!” he repeated. “Those men are not out there to just watch and report back. If they think I’m here – if they think you know I’m here – we’re in serious trouble. They knew Ava was mafia, Kayla, that’s as big a gamble as they come, and they had no problem getting their silencers ready to silence her forever. Getting rid of you and Stephanie? That’s a day at the park, baby! That’s nothin’! And they’ll do it, too! They.Will.Kill.You,” he emphasized each word, “and they will make it hurt so bad you’ll be beggin’ ‘em to hurry it up!” Kayla was too stunned to say anything. Steve saw the effect he was having on her and took a deep breath. His anger had very abruptly changed to a manic anxiety. The pendulum had swung so quickly as the artificial side effect played up his fear that the lump in his throat threatened to choke him. These emotions were not created out of nowhere, however, they existed in some capacity before they could be amplified, and Kayla saw it the moment his face changed. “Please, Sweetness,” he beseeched her. “Please. I don’t wanna see you kissin’ anyone that isn’t me. Ever. But you saw those pictures. And I’ll take you kissin’ Shane any day over seein’ you as a bloody pulp.”
Kayla traced her finger down over Steve’s patch, then she nodded. “Ok.” Steve popped his head out to make sure Stephanie was still in the livingroom, which she was, then he ducked back into the stairwell and hugged his wife fiercely against him. “It’s going to be really weird for you to watch it, you know.”
“I’ve seen it before. On the pier.”
Kayla exhaled heavily. “Right … after you escaped from the boat.” He nodded. Kayla didn’t say she was sorry, because they were so far past sorries. This was very different, and while his nature was to be jealous, she wasn’t surprised that that emotion was the farthest thing from his mind this time. The danger to not just her but to Stephanie, too, was, frankly, terrifying. She didn’t like that she was going to have to make it look real to those men watching from the van, but she knew her husband was right that this was how it had to happen.
Moments later, Steve and Stephanie disappeared into the loft, then at five minutes before 5 o’clock the ever punctual Shane Donovan rang Kayla’s doorbell.
Kayla met Shane’s worried eyes for only enough moments to register his appearance, which was shockingly close to how she last saw him in his ‘30’s.
“Honey!” she said in a voice raised just enough to carry the sound of relief to them rather than fake enthusiasm, “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Are yo—?” Kayla’s completely unexpected kiss ended that line of questioning as quickly as it had started.
Kayla experienced this kiss like a third-party observer. She felt him there, and she knew she was kissing him. But this was nothing more than a means to an end; like an actress playing a part, she had to get that job done, and it had to look good. So she laid her hand on his chest, pulled him to her, and laid a kiss on him that would have looked believable to anyone. For Shane, however, the experience was quite different. The love of his life had always been Kimberly, but there was an affection for Kayla that would always live on in him in a way that would not do so in her. Perhaps if he’d grown apart from her it would be different, but Shane was still in love with Kayla when he’d pushed her away. Just like he’d done with Kimberly. He’d blown it with both of them, and he’d never realized that more than when both sisters were out of his life. Kimberly had gotten remarried to Phillip Collier, Kayla left Salem to make a new life for herself, both of them were across the country in LA, and he was not “doing” and was, therefore, teaching from his wheelchair at the Salem Police Academy. Now all these years later, his health had resolved itself, and he had neither of them. The torch he now carried for Kim was bright, but the road to her was certainly closed; a different torch burned for Kayla, too, but he’d always respected her wishes and not pursued her once he’d set up a part-time residence in LA, as well. The relationship between the three of them was awkward. He didn’t see her often, but there were kid-transfers and school functions where the three of them would be in the same room at the same time, and the tension it elicited in Kimberly was tangible.
Kayla was making sure the men bought this. She peripherally saw that they were much closer than she’d realized two properties away really was, and there was no doubt that they were taking this in. Her husband was right. This did have to look good, and that validation really helped her become completely ok with this for the first time.
Shane was not born yesterday, he knew based on their worrisome conversation that this was an act. But he allowed himself in this moment not to care, because right now Kayla was kissing him. For the first time in eight years, her lips were on his, and they felt good. Kayla’s kisses were always so different from Kimberly’s. Kim’s were delicate, lithe, and teasingly soft. Kayla’s were the opposite; they were full, committed, and always seemed to be searching with abandon. He knew this kiss wasn’t honest, but in this moment, Shane’s suppressed jealousy of Kimberly’s husband mixed with the fact that he’d never really wanted to break up with Kayla, left him suddenly more than a little confused.
Just as she pulled back Shane wrapped his suddenly assertive hands around her shoulders and leaned into her kiss. Kayla’s plan was to already have pulled him into the house by now, but that had not quite happened. When she felt Shane’s mouth open and his tongue try to coax hers to do the same, Kayla pulled back with a loud smack she prayed Steve couldn’t hear. She took advantage of Shane’s body close to hers and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“We’re being watched,” she whispered into his ear. “This act is for the van to your left, don’t look.” Shane may have been lost in the part, but he wasn’t nearly the highest ranking ISA agent for nothing. He didn’t need the uncharacteristic endearments or fake sexy voice or even that kiss, such as it was, to tell him that this wasn’t a rekindling but a rescue. Hearing her say it, though, was enough to make him shake off the effect of what her kiss had done to him. “We need your help, so please hug me back and make it look good.”
Comparmentalizing his emotions, something he was always so very good at, he got down to the business at hand. With his arms still on her shoulders he held her out from him and smiled warmly. “I can smell dinner from here, darling, so how about you tell me all about this bad day of yours, hmm?”
Once safely inside, Kayla dropped the act. “I’m so sorry, Shane. I know you’re probably wondering what the hell I just kissed you like that for.” She was immediately very intense.
“Nevermind that, Kayla, are you alright?”
“Not really, no.”
He went to her and held her by the shoulders again before bending to look her square in the eye. “I’m here now, just tell me what’s wrong.”
Steve hadn’t heard what went on in the doorway, but he knew it had happened and was eager to get this farce behind them. So, he wasted no time coming out from the bedroom, Stephanie eagerly in tow. Kayla’s eyes darted over Shane’s shoulder when he did, a look of real relief spread across her face.
“Shane,” she said softly but confidently, “I need you to trust me.” Then she nodded her head to her husband that Shane should turn around. When he did he positively freaked out.
“Bloody hell!” he blurted, taking a physical jump back, eyes wide with shock. The man he was looking at couldn’t have been mistaken for anyone else. His hair was short, his face had aged, and his build was hard and lean, but there was no mistaking who that man was in front of him. “Steve?!”
“The patch give me away, Double-0-Donovan?” Steve tried to jibe, but he was surprised to find that his heart wasn’t in it.
Shane was positively agape as he looked from Kayla to Stephanie then back to Steve. “Is that really you? You’re alive?!”
“That’s what they tell me, dude.”
Something about this exchange playing out in front of her made Stephanie feel very protective over her father. She wrapped her arms around his ribs and glued herself to his side. As if that would convince her uncle that what he was seeing was real and that they were a family.
Shane angled his head to Kayla beside him, but his eyes remained incapable of tearing themselves from Steve.
“It’s true,” Kayla said. “He’s alive. He’s been here in LA for two weeks and hiding here in the house for the last …”
“Ten days,” Steve helped as he closed the distance between them.
“Ten days,” she repeated.
With his arm around his daughter, he stuck out his free right hand to shane, still just inside the front door. Shane took it immediately, his expression melting into an incredulous smile. Steve was alive. After all these years.
“Steve! Damn glad to see you, mate!” The exhuberance of Shane’s delight that his friend wasn’t dead was real. But Steve sensed something unmistakable, too. The slightest regret, perhaps, that a door was now truly and forever closed. It was fleeting for the moment, because Shane pulled Steve out of Stephanie’s embrace and into his, slapping his back with firm appreciation for his existence. Steve reacted in kind, smiled back, and returned the embrace. It was nice to have been missed. But he treaded with emotional … restraint.
Steve and Kayla sent Stephanie into her room to do her homework, which she fought with considerable irascibility before yielding, then sat Shane down on the couch and began explaining. Right off the bat, however, he began questioning them.
“So, you’re saying I just missed Kimberly?” Shane asked. “That was risky, don’t you think? Are you sure Stephanie’s safe in the house?”
“That’s why we’re telling you, Shane.” Kayla replied. “To make sure that she is. To make sure that all of us are.”
“Well, I understand that, Kayla, but I’m not sure I would have courted that. Why didn’t you just have Kim keep her for the night?”
“Because I wanted eyes on my daughter, Shane, that’s why.” Steve’s tone was impressively calm, because he didn’t want any kind of fight tonight. But Shane’s inherent questioning of their methods right out of the gate caused him to choose his words very carefully. Shane detected the tension that he thought he might possibly have created, so he backed off and let them explain.
This was very different from the disclosure with Tarrington in 1992, Steve had been gone barely more than a year at that point. This was an epic ten years, and the truly revisionist history of it all blew Shane’s mind.
“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “We suspected Dimera was dealing in human trafficking, but we couldn’t make anything stick.”
“That’s because you didn’t get the benefit of a mole helping you along this time.”
“This time?”
“Steve,” Kayla warned.
“Come on, how shocked can you really be, dude? Dimera is still covering his tracks better than anyone right now. In another six or seven years he might get a little lazier in his old, decaying age, but right now he’s still kidnapping people and imprinting them as brand new ones.”
“No, you’re right, of course, you’re right, mate.” Steve had not warmed to being called “mate” again. He’d been trying to keep a very neutral mind, here, because he really was over it all. But that didn’t mean that Shane’s attraction to his wife wasn’t there; that it was ok with him. Steve could see in Shane’s eyes that those feelings still existed in him somewhere. It didn’t worry him or make him angry like it once had, but he just didn’t feel the same kind of friendship toward Shane that he once did and realized now that he probably never really would. “It’s just so damned unreal just yet.”
This struck a nerve, because Steve just wanted to be taken at face value. “Didn’t we think you were dead once, too?”
Shane’s face changed, then he got up and stood in the middle of the room. Steve was right, Shane had been presumed dead, too, and it was the undoing of his entire being. From that day on, his life as he’d known it was over. “Yes, I remember the last day of that life, too, Steve. In fact, you were there. Right before that mountain blew up. Or has that memory not come back to you yet?”
Kayla felt the sudden alpha maleness coming off of both of them, it had come out of nowhere, and she had to put a stop to it right now. “Ok, come on, sit back down,” she took Shane’s hand in hers, and just like that Steve’s haunches went up. Not because he was jealous, but because the ease with which Shane was able to take her hand and be assuaged showed him how close to the surface his feelings for her possibly were.
“How are you so calm about this, Kay?” Steve hated Shane’s use of that nickname. Lots of people called her that, but when Shane used it, it was an endearment. It was … Sweetness. And it was the one thing in this conversation that he’d go back to later when he and Kayla debrifed it alone. What she said next, however, absolutely diffused everything that was hanging in the air now, and it would stay diffused for the remainder of the night.
Kayla shrugged her shoulders and patted Shane’s hand in her lap. “Because Steve is the love of my life. The father of my children. I’ve lost ten years, but I get the rest of our lives back. He’s going to be here for the rest of Stephanie’s life. We’re going to have more kids. Somehow God has seen fit to put right what once went wrong.” God, how Steve loved her. “My world is back, Shane. So, I can either sit here and stress about how much of it was stolen from me, or I can take the bull by the horms and make sure we’re able to live the rest of it. The three of us. Together.” Kayla knew this statement was the final period that had never been placed on the end of their relationship, and she knew it was going to hurt him. Not a lot like in her 1991 jump, because here they’d already been really and truly over. But enough to not be ignored. So she held Shane’s hand in her lap now, right in front of Steve, and she wasn’t the least bit worried about how it was going to affect him, because she literally felt his silent support peeling off of him beside her. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For being there for me all these years. Like I know you’re going to be there for both of us now.”
It was very clear what she was saying to him. He heard her. And he wasn’t going to let her down. Shane nodded, squeezed her hand back, and smiled bittersweetly. “I’ll always be here for you, Kay.” Then he looked to Steve. “I’ll always be here for both of you.” He really meant it.
The basics out of the way, they ate dinner in the livingroom (which was a serious treat for Stephanie, because it had to be a seriously crazy day in the Johnson house for Special Dinner on the Couch to happen) to avoid the disclosure of the kitchen window.
“We’re gonna have to do somethin’ about that now that we know they’re out there,” Steve said with a spoonful of rice hanging on its way to its destination. “I gotta be able to get in and out of the kitchen.”
“I think we can get some blinds up straight away,” Shane offered.
“Why don’t we just put up an old sheet for now?” Kayla asked.
“Might look awfully convenient,” Shane argued.
“He’s right, baby, you wouldn’t put up an old sheet outta nowhere, you’d do real window curtains or somethin’.”
Steve gave him every last detail of where he’d been for the past ten years with an emphasis on the last year. He saved certain parts for when Stephanie was out of the room; she might have been a mature ten, but she was still ten. To Shane, however, he didn’t leave out a thing, including his life with Ava and how he’d left her on their wedding day. Shane shocked them by not actually being at all shocked that his memories chose to download as he was ready to marry another. He remembered when his own memories had come back, sometimes all you need is the first spark, it’s just a matter of finding it. Of course, it didn’t really happen quite that way this time, but the fact was that Steve left Ava in the first place because memories of Kayla and Stephanie had started to emerge.
Steve couldn’t help getting up and down several times to check the position of the van, which had not moved. They told him about the men trying to get into the house and eventually succeeding with their meter reader ruse. This was very concerning to Shane. The fact that a Dimera agent had been inside the house wasn’t the worst thing that could have possibly happened, but it was close. Shane swept the entire place from top to bottom, especially the fuse box and telephone landline. He was confident that nothing was there, however, and that was quite curious.
“So, he tried every door and window, but then when he had the chance inside he didn’t place any surveillance?”
“That’s good, right?” Kayla asked.
“It’s damn peculiar, actually,” Shane corrected. “Bugs generally need proximity, which would explain their presence down the street, but I’m fairly certain the place is clean.”
“And that’s how we’ve gotta keep it,” Steve said.
“Quite right.”
Shane and Kayla moved this conversation into the kitchen, where she did the dishes, he dried, and Steve participated from the stairwell.
“So if they didn’t place the bug why are they back, to finish the job?” he asked.
“I doubt it. They’d never leave without placing the bug unless they had decied there was nothing to hear. No, they must believe you’re not here now but that you will be. How long did it take them to show up, two weeks?”
“Yeah, this morning,” Steve confirmed.
Shane rubbed at his chin and set his stance in analytical thought. “You’re sure there’s not a paper trail?”
“Just the green kind. Untraceable”
“Vitali isn’t going to be especially keen on that if he hasn’t figured it out yet.”
“One problem at a time. Not sayin’ that family’s not bad news, but they have no clue who Steve Johnson is, they think they’re lookin’ for a dude named Nick Stockton.”
“Alright, fine. I’m going to begin straight away on this in the morning. In the meantime, you need to stay hidden, Steve. I’m fairly sure bought that note to Miss Vitali and are only here becaue they came up empty in New York.”
Steve winked at Kayla, who was able to just see him from her position at the tiny center island. He wanted to be the one drying dishes with her. “I think I can take a another day or two of solitary confinement with my girls,” he said smiling at her.
“You’re in for rather longer a haul than that, I’m afraid.”
Steve’s smile fell. “How much longer of a haul?”
Shane huffed out a smirk. “Dimera’s resources are not limited, he wants his property back.” Kayla bristled, but Steve was at full attention. “He’ll give us a fight.”
“I get that. So?”
“So, it’s going to mean a mission. That needs time.
“Ok, how much time are you talkin’ about, another week or two?” Steve asked, dreading the thought of doubling his time in confinement.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you, mate, I don’t see how you’d be looking at less than a month before we neutralize him. Maybe two.” Steve and Kayla positively freaked out.
“A month?!”
“Or two?!”
“No way, Shane,” Steve flared, “No fuckin’ way!” He parentally lowered his voice on the profanity, but his abject dissention on this timeframe wholly matched his wife’s.
“The man’s not going to just give up say, ‘over here, boys.’ We have to locate him first.”
“I just gave you his location, Donovan, what’s the problem?” Steve couldn’t keep the combative tone at bay on this one, and Shane was having a hard time not matching that tone with one of his own.
“It’s not as easy as just having a location! I have to vet it, assemble a team, run it up the flagpole, send scouts.”
“Scouts? Since when do you need scouts?!” Kayla’s outburst shocked the ISA agent, and he found himself feeling a strange sense of disloyalty. Steve was still processing the fact that he was facing a third week of confinement in the house and that it wasn’t nearly over. “We both know that you can put together a strike team in a matter of a day or two, Shane!”
She realized she was speaking too loudly and went to the arched doorway to get eyes on Stephanie. “You ok out there?” she called out to her.
“Yeah, I’m watching Sabrina,” she said. But her voice was tense. Clearly she’d overheard enough of their conversation to remind Kayla that she should not be. Steve vaguely realized that the tween pop star on Stephanie’s door was Melissa Joan Hart.
“Listen, you two,” Kayla said far more quietly, “there’s a little girl in the other room who isn’t always as fearless as she pretends to be.”
“I remember,” Shane mildly smiled. Because Steve was already incensed, things that would have rolled off his back no longer had a chance. This, therefore, incensed him even more.
“Shane, we cannot live this way,” Kayla insisted. Steve has been stuck here for almost two weeks. You’re almost at the top of the ISA, right? Am I remembering that wrong?” Shane added confusion to his tense features. “You are the flagpole now. You get whatever confirmations you need, but please work with Steve, trust his information, and do what you have to so that we can come out and tell the world he’s alive. He has a mother and a sister that love him and have never quite been the same since his death. He has a daughter that wants her father outside of these four walls.”
Something clicked for Shane. “Hold on. November 26th? That’s what you said, right, that you’ve been hiding out in Los Angeles since November 26th? Why did you wait so long to contact me?” Neither Steve nor Kayla had a good answer for this, because telling him they were time travelers was not an option. Their silence, however, was palpable, and Shane knew there was a lot more to this than they were letting on. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me the whole story?” He was very annoyed that they were holding out on him
Kayla rubbed at her forehead while Steve let out an exasperated exhale. “Not really, dude, no.”
Shane threw up his arms and worked the muscle in his jaw. “I don’t know how in the bloody hell you expect me to help you if I don’t know what might be out there.”
“Ya know what, you’re right,” Steve said quite rationally. “But I can’t give you any more than that. There are parts of my memory I don’t have back, and I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” Shane knew he was being mollified, but he let Steve go on. “I’m telling you, man, every single thing I’ve got, you now have, too.”
Shane crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “I’m still going to have to put together a proper team. That’s not going to happen overnight.”
“Why can’t it? It did last time!”
“Kayla –” Steve was now the one doing the warning.
“I mean it, Shane,” she interrupted sharply. “Steve cannot sneak around for two months, and that’s far too long to expect me and, especially, Stephanie, to play this role without a mistake! Christmas is coming, and now there’s this date I have on New Year’s Eve.”
“A date?”
“Something I roped myself into. How am I supposed to do that?”
“Roped yourself in how? Wasn’t that whole show out there to convince them that you and I are together? Who’s this date with?”
“Don’t you start, too.” Kayla’s heart hadn’t stoped racing like a runner in a sprint since Shane’s announcement of a one to two month sentence, and now she was feeling it in her throat. Steve was feeling it, too. The panic was artificial but it sure had real effects. Kayla saw Steve’s breaths come harder, and she was suddenly reminded of what had happened at her desk before she’d finally left. It was happening to both of them this time. The panic was so palpable and growing so fast that she wondered if they were somehow feeding off of each other. It finally clicked for her once and for all that this was a jump effect. She knew it in her gut, and it was scary. Changing her demeanor on a dime with this realization, she went to Steve in the stairs and took his shaking hands in her own. “Shh,” she whispered, “we’ve both got to calm down.”
“I can’t do this another two months, baby,” Steve insisted tightly. “If we’re here.”
“Shh … I know.”
“I can’t.”
“I know. Shane,” she said with a very urgent calm,” I need you to go sit with Stephanie. Talk about normal things, but keep her occupied for a while.”
Shane could very plainly see all kinds of subtext passing between the two of them and knew that whatever it was he wasn’t being told was going to stay that way. “Yes, of course.” He also knew that the next time he was made part of the conversation he’d better have a shorter timeframe. “Take your time.” Then he went in to his niece with a smile on his face and a mission forming in his head.
Steve’s heart was still pounding. “What the hell is happening to me?”
“It’s happening to me, too—it’s a jump effect—Just breathe.”
“How, a 13-day delayed reaction?”
She shook her head and encouraged him to take the same deep breaths she was. Kayla’s revelation was farther along than Steve’s was, but he realized that his wife had sussed something out and did what she said.
It seemed very strange to leave Stephanie and Shane in the livingroom as if there weren’t veritable hitmen in a van outside, but it had become pretty clear that Shane’s assessment of the situation was accurate and that they didn’t think Steve was already here. Stephanie could not have been in safer hands than with Shane, so once their blood pressure had returned to something healthy they took the very brief but important privacy they needed upstairs. Kayla explained what had happened at her desk and her theory about this being another kind of jump effect.
“It’s not the first time,” she insisted. “It’s just the first time it’s been this bad.”
“So what are you saying, this is like your arcs? The slipstream’s doin’ it?”
Her stomach dropped out of her belly, because that’s exactly what she thought, and it was only becoming clearer to her now. “Think about it. it’s like those emotional highs and lows. Only this time it’s not happiness or sadness, this time it was stress … and—“
“Fear.” Kayla nodded. Steve dragged a palm down his face with this truth that was now as things that had happened, that he’d felt, and that they’d experienced started to really fall into place. “It’s every emotion. We’re feelin’ all of ‘em stronger.”
“It’s good when we’re happy, and we can cry when we’re sad, but the stress and anger, or I dunno, the fear? Panic attacks are dangerous. We have to do whatever we can to control ourselves.
The amplification effect now at bay, everyone kind of reset themselves and got rational. The rest of the conversation was about how this was all going to go, and by 8 o’clock they all knew what had to be done. Tomorrow Shane would begin the process of assembling a strike force to infiltrate Stefano’s compound, which still stood exactly where they’d left it before another timeline’s self-destruct wiped it from existence. Shane would do what he could to expedite things and make them happen as fast as he could, and Steve and Kayla promised to let him do his job. More or less. The truly difficult part of this conversation was about what to tell Kimberly. Shane didn’t want to lie to her, but for her safety and that of his own two children, he decided the less she knew the better. There was also the fact that they’d never know for sure if all of Kimberly’s Multiple Personality Disorder’s alters were as truly gone forever as they all wanted to believe. Any one of them could take a secret Kimberly was keeping and deliver it right to Stefano. Years had gone by since Marlena had cast Kim’s alters out of her, but this was Steve’s life – Kayla and Stephanie’s lives – they were taking no chances. The decision not to tell Kimberly and that they must act 100% normal until Stefano was neutralized meant there could be no exceptions and that this New Year’s Eve date was still on. However long it took, Steve and Kayla had to just accept that until Shane came through or they jumped, they’re stuck.
While Stephanie got ready for bed, Kayla saw Shane to the door where they said their goodbyes in the open doorway for the van’s benefit.
“Shane, do you know an agent named Mark Chase?” she asked softly.
“Yes, of course,” Shane replied with confusion, “he’s one of our best. Why do you know him?”
“Not really. Is he going to be on the strike team?”
Shane struck a very curious pose. “Well that remains to be seen, he usually leads these things, but it’s possible.”
Steve eyed his wife carefully from the couch. He didn’t remember the name of the agent she tried to save during the mission in 1991, but Kayla told him about the entire thing and how it was on the way to finding him in his cell. Shane was boggled by this strange direction Kayla had turned in the conversation, but Steve got it.
“Does he have a family?”
“Kayla, why—”
“Better hold my hand and keep it real,” she smiled while tousling his hair, but Steve saw the melancholy in the corners of her eyes. “Does he have a family?”
Shane let Kayla caress his hand a bit but turned his pointless feelings off while she did. “Yes, a wife, and two teenagers. I believe the youngest just started high school.”
Kayla swallowed. That meant he’d left two little kids fatherless to rescue her husband. For a change she took some comfort in knowing that that timeline no longer existed. “Please don’t send him on this one.”
“Kayla—”
She reached her arms around him and whispered into his ear, “Please.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he whispered into her hair.
Steve took in this scene without a shred of jealousy. It was more a deep concern for what was going through his wife’s head. They needed to jump. He didn’t want to leave Stephanie, but they still didn’t know what would happen if they died in the slipstream, so that wasn’t an option. The stress of waiting out the mission, however, was almost as bad. He put it out of his mind as he heard Kayla kiss Shane and then close the door behind him.
“You ok?” he asked her.
Kayla shrugged. “I was about to ask you the same thing.
“Pretendin’ you’re in a play or somethin’.” He couldn’t bring himself to snicker this time, he just wasn’t in any kind of mood to be snide.
He didn’t ask her any more about Mark Chase, she didn’t ask him any more about the fact that she’d kissed Shane twice right in front of him, and they all got ready for bed.
It took only moments with his daughter and a boy living in a cupboard under the stairs for Steve’s mood to turn around. Prime Kayla was just as moved with the beauty of listening to her husband read to their daughter as Destination Kayla had been and felt something intense fill her as a result. As Kayla sat on the side of Stephanie’s bed a short time later, she couldn’t help but just take her in. Stephanie lay with her favorite stuffed bunny clutched to her chest, and Kayla never wanted to leave her side. When she reached out to stroke Stephanie’s cheek with the back of her hand, her daughter’s brave face finally began to crack. “How are you doing with all this, Baby Girl?”
Stephanie shrugged. “I’m ok,” she said with a neutrality that didn’t match the very affected expression that, in the safety of her room with her mother, she was no longer trying to suppress.
“Been pretty special having your daddy back, hasn’t it.” Stephanie’s long lashes cast lovely arcs around eyes that blinked in fatigue. “A little hard, too, though?”
Stephanie turned onto her back and nodded. “Papa’s job … he didn’t want to do that job did he?”
Kayla shook her head as she continued connecting with Stephanie in soft, loving touches. “Nope. He sure didn’t.”
“He … ran away. Didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did, Baby Girl.”
“How did he know where we were?”
“When you love people enough, you find them.”
Stephanie smiled. “I heard you guys talking in the kitchen. Why is it gonna take so long for Uncle Shane to fix it?”
“Well, I’m not real sure, but I do know that he will. He’ll fix it.
It had been just the two of them for as long as her daughter had been alive, really, and even though it had been a little while, Kayla knew her. It was no different today than it would be when she was 19 than it had been when she was five. “You know, Stephanie … you don’t always have to be so brave.”
“Yes, I do,” she whispered.
“Oh, Beauty,” she said as she stroked her palm lovingly over her hair. “Out there tomorrow, yes, you do. But not here. Never here.”
Stephanie didn’t cry, but she did sit up and relax her body the rest of the way against her mother and just let herself be held by her. She admitted that she was scared that she’d come home from school one day to find her father had been taken away and that she’d never see him again. Kayla set aside the novelty of Stephanie at this amazing age and concentrated on reassuring her. Steve very much wanted to go in, too, but this was Kayla’s first night here, and he wanted to give his wife this time with Stephanie to herself.
Kayla was surprised when Steve told her the call coming into her cellphone an hour later was Sam.
“This late?”
“Trust me.”
Sure enough, it was, and Kayla was probably more uncomfortable now than she’d been since she’d arrived into this body. Shane knew all of her actions were a ruse, but Sam was in the dark and clearly in active pursuit of her affections. Steve saw her discomfort as she moved nervously about the room and – for what seemed to be the millionth time this jump – whispered for her to act normal. But Kayla had a really hard time with this conversation. Steve had told her about where things were at with Sam, but she still felt very much like she was just about to say the wrong thing in any number of contexts. Sam knew something was up, too, and wondered if she was ok. She did the very best she could to be the Kayla Sam knew in this moment, and that included confirming that she would go to the party with him.
“Great! Kayla, that’s great. I kind of admit, I’m surprised, I was ready for you to shoot me down.”
“Oh?” she asked as she eyed her husband standing just feet from her.
“Well, you, uh … you keep saying you’re not dating material and that I’m your boss and everything.”
“Well, I wasn’t lying there,” she chuckled nervously, because she did remember those first-run conversations.
“Well, I can take a hint, and I figured you were probably trying to just let me down easy.” Kayla giggled non-committally. “I’m glad I’m wrong.” His tone was becoming something far more personal than he’d spoken to Kayla with to this point. “Thank you for giving me a chance.”
Steve made it through his wife kissing Shane without a real problem. He made it through the entire discussion. He even made it through the goodbye kiss encore. But it might have been better if he wasn’t able to hear the conversation, because the gentle tone of Sam Granger’s voice charming his wife with romantic affection finally drew out a jealousy that smoldered his green eye into something far greener.
Kayla didn’t know how to reply, the whole thing felt so wrong. And the reason why hit her hard and all at once. Because she was knowingly misleading a man into believing her response to his pursuit was honest. This time it wasn’t about an election, though, this time it was about protecting her family. That knowledge motivated her to find a reply.
“Well, Kim wants me to date, so she was happy to clear her schedule. But it’s like I’ve said before, you’re my boss, and that has to come first.”
“Ok, duly noted, Dr. Johnson. I owe your sister one.”
“Yeah, Kimberly’s a real peach,” Steve bristled. Kayla realized Steve’s jealousy was finally showing, and a part of her that wasn’t all that small liked it. Their eyes locked, and Kayla was now only half listening as Sam went on. She saw how badly Steve was reacting to this conversation, but instead of making her angry, this time it did the opposite. The longer Sam talked, the more territorial Steve’s expression was, and the more her body reacted. She liked Steve’s covetousness. She liked that he saw red at this interaction with Sam. She liked that he wanted to possess her. And her body was heating up with every passing moment.
“Are you there?”
“Mm?” Kayla almost bobbled the phone.
“I said don’t forget about Scott Riley tomorrow.”
“Right,” she said, remembering his name on one of the charts she jumped in to this afternoon.
“I’d get it done at the beginning of rounds, not the end.”
Kayla made a mental note to get up to speed on this patient in the morning. There was a bit of excitement to go back to Cedars and treat actual patients, it was what she loved to do. But all of her attention was on Steve and the serious aura that she could feel as surely as she felt the temperature in the air, drawing her in.
“Ok, great, then … I’ll see you … Monday.”
“Monday. Ok.” Her husband was boring a hole through her in reaction to her sweet tone.
“I hope you’ll have lunch with me?”
Oh hell no. Dr. Oncology did not just ask her on a second date before the first one had even happened.
“I – sure. Yes, that would be – nice.” What the hell else was she supposed to say?
“Hang up the phone.”
“Great, it’s a date.
“Hang. Up. Kayla.”
“Bye.”
The moment she clicked the button Steve ripped the phone away from her and threw it onto the bed.
“You’re mad at me?” Steve shook his head as he glared at her. “But you are jealous.”
Steve nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m such an asshole, but I hate that he calls you every f*cking day.”
Something about this doctor made Steve’s blood boil, and it got worse with every interaction. It wasn’t a latent reacton to Shane, and it wasn’t something leftover from her first disclosure of him in Hawaii. This was a live and in person reaction to Sam Granger’s pursuit of his wife. Steve knew the guy had no clue what he’d gotten himself into, but he didn’t care, it provoked him into jealous madness.
“I’m not sorry,” she whispered sexily. “I like it.”
Steve’s dick was a steel rod when he clutched his wife to him and kissed her hotly. The thrill it produced shot right into her center making her arousal pool very quickly. They held on in a desperate need to make each other feel the passion they had for one another, kissing with a wild physicality that could not be restrained.
Kayla felt his mouth on hers and wanted him inside her. “I’m not sorry!” She dragged her lips down his neck, suckling wetly and reveling in the sounds her actions produced. “I love how possessive you are!” Her kisses down his neck to his chest were so sexy, Steve could literally feel how wanton they were. When he felt her tongue lick its way down the blade of his dagger, he grabbed her buttocks and squeezed hard.
“Mine!” he grunted as he ground his erection against her. “Mine!” Kayla’s hands flew to her husband’s waistband and began to tug. “Show me! Show me how it was last night! I want to feel the memory! I want it!”
“You want it, do you? Like last night?”
“Every minute of it!”
In only moments Steve stripped he and his wife of their clothing and told her to get her robe on.
“But isn’t it just coming back off?”
“You want the memory or don’t you?” Kayla smiled devilishly. “Now get it on.” Steve wasn’t feeling jealous anymore. Now he was feeling drunk on the powerful sexuality her reaction to his demand was producing.
Once tied, Steve pulled her down to straddle him just like last night. Only then did he untie it. “We were playin’ 20 Questions again. I called it the What If Edition.” He pulled aside the lapel and licked her right nipple as he rolled her left in his fingers. Kayla moaned, and he repeated it, squeezing her peaked nipple between his fingertips just a little harder. He liked when she moaned and wanted to hear it again. She did, and he smiled wickedly. “You’re so sexy, baby. You’re so damned sexy.” Kayla gyrated her hips into him to show him just how sexy she was.
Steve pulled the rest of her robe down from her body, exposing her, and he patiently told her about their game. “Everything was a what if. What if I went back to visit you in 1988. What if I married you again. Would it be ok if I was the only one relivin’ it ‘cause you, right here right now, didn’t come visit with me.”
“And what did I say?” She was continuing to roll herself over him teasingly. She already knew the answer, because of the emails, but she wanted to hear this anyway.
“You blew my mind with what you said, baby. You said, “she is me.” Kayla smiled. “Then I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself. And I just had to make sure before I lost control. I said what if I came back to you here and told you about how I f*cked your brains out.” Kayla whimpered. “How I made a memory without you. He couldn’t wait another moment to devour her breasts and sucked them into his mouth one at a time in order to produce more whimpers and moans. “And I asked you … is it ok. Can I make love to you.”
Kayla had stayed her hips. “You were looking for permission,” she whispered.
Steve nodded. “You gave it to me, Kayla.” He took her face in his hands and brushed his lips gently against hers, his love for her so strong. “And I couldn’t deny you any longer. I couldn’t deny myself.”
“I give it to you again,” Kayla said. “Because I am yours. Forever. Make love to me.”
Steve could feel her wetness against his penis and was done waiting. The possessive fervor hadn’t subsided. It increased when he heard Kayla’s words and only increased more when he saw the look of anticipation on her face. He knew that look, and her core was aching for him to fill her. He rolled on top of her and teased her entrance with his tip. Even thought they’d made love earlier that day, it was overwhelming how completely Steve needed to join with her. He needed it as much as Kayla needed the memory.
Steve buried himself inside her, and Kayla wanted to moan far more loudly than she let herself. “You were so tight, baby. You felt incredible.”
“I feel incredible now,” she said as her hips encouraged him to thrust. When he did, she filled her palms with his ass and attached her lips to his neck. Steve sucked in his breath and couldn’t help it when he sped up.
“I love you, Sweetness.”
“I love you, too!”
Kiss my tattoo! That’s what you did, do it again!”
She did as she was told, and Steve had to grunt so he wouldn’t cry out, it felt so good. Kayla shifted just slightly so his cock would stroke her clit then really started to pant. Steve felt the masculinity course through him as she did. She wanted that pleasure, and he was giving it to her.
“I’m gonna come! Steve … Steve … !
“Not yet!”
“Please!”
“You gotta have it right!” Steve pulled out of her, and immediately wanted back in as he sat upright.
“Ungh!” The feeling of her climax lost throbbed in her swollen clit.
“Don’t worry, baby, you’re gonna have it,” he said arrogantly as he slid his fingers through her wetness. “I’m gonna give it to you.” Steve pulled her back into lap, and she lowered herself back onto his slick cock. “Now ride me, baby.” The moment she did, the pleasant impulses showed on her face. “You ride me good and hard like you did last night.”
Kayla rocked back and forth hard and fast, the orgasm she’d just lost working its way back quickly. Steve met her hips with his thrusts and kissed her hotly several times before her moans became sharp and urgent. Like last night, he’d been holding back his own orgasm, but now he’d reached his limit. Just as the first spurt of cum left his body Kayla finally tensed.
“I love you!” she breathed.
“I love you more!”
Steve released his torent inside of her before either of them could utter another word. She watched the sexual pleasure splay across her husband’s face and finally threw her head back as she clutched on to him. Kayla shook like a ragdoll on top of him, the feel of her stiff nipples rubbing against his chest so erotic she never wanted it to stop. Steve was delirious in his orgasm, every stream of cum bringing deep pleasure to his groin.
“Mine.” It was Kayla staking her claim this time, her breath hot against his neck as she lay her head down on his shoulder. “Mine.”
Steve held her against him, his palm cradling the back of her head as she quivered a final time. “Yes, I am, Sweetness. Only yours.”
After several moments of silence, Steve held kayla’s palm to the side of his face. “Remember our first time after I got my memory back?” Kayla nodded silently. “It was kind of like that.”
“I remember that,” she smiled sweetly.
“And now you have this to remember, too. Only last night you were crying. Thanking me for coming back to you, you were so happy. And I was crying, too. Because you knew something was still wrong. And I just couldn’t stop myself, I felt so guilty for being so happy.” Kayla breathed his name softly. “But now you have it. You have all of it.” He kissed her lips softly. “You have all of me.”
They cleaned up, checked on Stephanie, who continued to sleep soundly, and then snuggled up with each other in their bed. Kayla dug her head into his chest, and Steve felt the rush of pleasure that move always elicited in him before she settled against him.
Steve played his fingers with hers over his chest. “I need somethin’ to wear at night, Sweetness, especially if Stephanie’s gonna be crawling in with us in the mornings.” Kayla lifted her head to look at him questioningly. “Today was the first time. Just came in and hunkered down.”
Kayla smiled. “Hmmp. She used to do that all the time. Is … that alright?”
Steve smiled. “She’s our baby girl. Of course, it’s alright.”
Kayla laid her head back down. The thought of it delighted her. The Stephanie at home didn’t get sleepy mornings with a mom and a dad; she’d had all of her childhood with Steve stolen from her. But this Stephanie was getting some of that time back when she was still young enough to enjoy the purity of two loving parents that loved unconditionally.
So, yes, Steve was going to need some pajamas, and she would work on getting those for him as soon as possible.
“Sweetness?” Steve’s tone had changed. “You really like the jealousy?.” He pillowed his arm behind his head to look down at her, and she leaned up on her elbow to face him. “’Cause I’m not kidding, that guy calls every day.” .
“Well, you know, I’ve been thinking about that.” Kayla took his hand and held it. “We don’t have to worry about it too much longer, because even if Shane can’t get to Stefano before the party, that’s the last time I need to pretend.”
“Didn’t you say that you tried dating him sober? After the party?”
“Actually … yeah, you’re right. But it was literally only a couple dates that went absolutely nowhere, and maybe I don’t even have to go through with those, maybe just the party this time.”
“And you’re having lunch with him Monday, goodie.”
“Steve, come on,” she chuckled.
“Baby, I know you’re doin’ it ‘cause you have to, but it makes me insane when you flirt with him.”
“If a little fake flirting with Sam makes you feel that way … what about … Shane?”
Steve sat all the way up and held her face in his hand. “I don’t want you worryin’ for one minute how I’m feeling about Shane. I’m so over you and Shane, Kayla.”
“Are you sure? I—I kissed him.”
“I’m the one who made you.”
“You should see your face when he calls me Kay.” Steve blinked. She was right.
“Ok,” he nodded. “I don’t like it when he calls you that. It means somethin’ to him.”
“Not to me,” she said softly, and Steve hated the concerned tone in her voice.
“Baby, it does to him. It’s not like when your sister and brothers call you that. It’s different. I can hear it in how he says it. So, yeah, that bothers me. Nothin’ else.
The fact was that whereas she did enjoy Steve’s jealousy over Sam, the same could not be said for any similar feelings he had about Shane, and once and for all, she just needed to be sure. “So … it’s really just Sam, then? Not Shane at all?”
“Baby, listen, I’m not sayin’ I like it. You’re my wife, I don’t like it. But things are complicated, now, so I gotta deal with it. Now, I know I’m comin’ of cold to him, but we’re just never gonna be friends like we were. I’ve tried feelin’ that, but I’m just not. But he’s not the enemy anymore. So all that sh*t from before? No, I promise you, baby. I promise you. Not Shane. Just Dr. Oncology.”
“Really?” she smiled.
“I’m tellin’ ya, Sweetness. It’s botherin’ you more than it’s botherin’ me.”
“It is bothering me. I don’t want to pretend with him anymore.”
“Just pretend you’re in a play. It works, you’ll see.”
“I love you, Steve.”
“God, Swetness, I love you, too.”
Satisfied that all really was ok, Kayla smiled contentedly. Things really were complicated. A life where she had to play a role that involved kissing other men and pretending goons weren’t surveilling her was the definition of complicated. But the healing that had been accomplished in this one day gave her so much that she needed. It gave them so much they both needed. Weight that had been lifted from their shoulders just after this one conversation was freeing. They weren’t out of the woods yet, the threat of Stefano Dimera was just yards away, and if they didn’t jump soon, it wouldn’t be going anywhere without a fight. But their love was strong enough to plow through the complicated and put their broken hearts back together piece by piece.
They kissed one last time before Steve yawned. “Come here, baby, we’re gonna sleep real good tonight.” He brought Kayla back in to snuggle against him, and reached over to turn out the light as she sighed into him. “Never stop doing that,” he said far more sleepily.
“What?”
“Burrow into me like that. It makes me happy.”
Kayla already knew this. “Yeah?”
“So happy.”
As Kayla laid her head back down on his chest Kitty jumped up onto the bed and settled herself across their legs.
“Are we gonna just let her lie on us like that?”
“She’s a cat. We don’t have a choice. Consider her a foot warmer.”
Steve was right, they slept exceptionally well that night. All four of them.